The Building
by 92fireDemon
Summary: Unable to challenge the gym on Cinnabar Island. Red is bored and needs something to do. Will an old building help quench his thirst for excitement? One-shot


**I don't own anything related to Pokemon**

* * *

Red tried to open the door. To his surprise he found it to be locked. He gave it one more tug before he gave up. He sighed in disappointment, he just needed two more badges to be able to challenge the Elite Four and accomplish his dream. But with the gym locked how could he beat the gym leader and earn his next badge? Red wondered why the gym would be locked. Maybe the leader was out or maybe this was some plot by Blue to stop him from catching up.

"Cha!" Red's attention was captured by the little yellow mouse that stood next to him, tugging at his jeans with its little paws. He stooped down, shifting his bag across so that he could reach in and take out some pellets of food. Pikachu eagerly accepted the food, sitting down as it munched, completely oblivious to the situation that they were in. Red smiled at his partner and petted his ear, before standing back up to take in Cinnabar Island.

The island was a rather small but dominated by the volcano that formed the basis of the island. There was only one town, that being the one that they were in. The were a few small residential houses and three large buildings of note, the Gym where they were standing at the north west of the town, the Pokémon centre and market near the south and the laboratory in the west. Red sighed again; he had no idea what to do next. The only other Gym left to go to was the one in Viridian and that like the one here was locked as well. Red scrunched his nose up; it looked like his dream of becoming a Pokémon master had hit a dead end just as it was looking promising.

Suddenly there was a flash of lightning soon followed by a crash of thunder. Red looked up as the first drops of rain started to hit him. He rolled his eyes; he couldn't believe his luck today. Next to him, he could hear Pikachu grumble, the little mouse hated getting his fur wet. It was not long before he felt Pikachu scurry up his leg and body. Perching itself upon Red's head using his cap as shelter from the rain, before crying out, which Red knew to mean: 'Get us the hell out of here!'

So Red ran south, reaching the Pokémon centre just as the rain started to get heavier. Pikachu jumped off from his head (Red managed to catch his cap as it fell off) and shook himself dry spraying Red with water. Red glared at his partner while Pikachu looked back with a wry grin on his face. The clock read 7.30pm, so Red decided that he might as well rent a room for the night and figure out what he would do tomorrow.

He made his way over to the nurse at the counter so that he could ask for room.

"Good evening! You're out late. Welcome to Cinnabar Island Pokémon centre. We can heal your Pokémon to perfect health?" Red raised his left eyebrow at the nurse. Why did every single nurse at a Pokémon centre begin with those lines? And also more to the point why did every single nurse look exactly the same? Maybe they were some weird inbred family or something. Red then noticed the nurse shift around uncomfortably, he realised that he hadn't responded to her question. He nodded, after all Blastoise had just carried him all the way from Pallet Town while Venusaur, Snorlax and Pikachu had battled the trainers on the way. He handed over five Pokéballs while Pikachu jumped up onto the counter.

"Thank you, your Pokémon will be healed shortly." The nurse said as she took Red's Pokémon. Red then pointed to the back of the centre to where the rooms were.

"Oh would you like to rent a room for the night?" Red looked down so that the nurse couldn't see him rolling his eyes. He looked back up and nodded.

"I'm sorry but all the rooms have been taken." Red scrunched his nose up in disappointment for a second before the nurse continued.

"A lot of trainers have been renting rooms here ever since Blaine locked the gym to go into training. You see he was beaten by this young charismatic trainer. I forget his name, but he had the most dazzling blue eyes and glowing sandy brown hair." She said dreamily. Red gaped at her, disgusted at how she portrayed his rival. Not to mention the difference in age between the two. Red took a few steps back away from her, unsure as to what she was.

"Oh right, well the best I can offer you is the couch over there." She pointed to green leather couch at the far right of the main hall way that faced the window of the Pokémon centre. Red couldn't tell how comfortable it was from this distance but it was better than nothing, so he accepted it.

"Your Pokémon will be healed in the morning. Have a nice night." Red nodded at the nurse before he made his way over to the couch. He poked it a few times, testing how soft and springy it was. After deeming it satisfactory, he pulled out his sleeping bag and laid it over the couch. He took of his cap and jacket before sitting down, reaching into his bag and taking out last night's leftovers. While he ate, he looked out through the window of the centre, watching and listening to rain patter down. He liked watching the rain; it reminded him of home; of playing in the park while the rain fell down upon him.

"Hey kid, can we sit here?" Red was jolted back to his senses as two guys approached him, they were pointing at the chairs near the couch. Red studied them for a moment, it was clear that they were trainers like him, and they didn't seem that much older than him. They had some nerve calling him a kid. Red finally nodded at the two, and watched as they took their seats and started eating while talking rather loudly to each other. Red lost interest in their conversation rapidly; they were both boasting about the strengths of their respective Pokémon, from the sounds of it they were both rookies. He went back to eating his own meal and watching the rain. Red had almost finished his meal when his attention was captured by the two rookie trainers.

"Did you check out that old building in the north east?"

"You mean the old lab?"

"Is that what it was? Well yeah did you go see it?"

"No not yet, it's been cordoned of hasn't it."

"What you too chicken?" The first trainer then proceeded to make chicken noises to which the second scoffed at.

"So Mr big shot, have you gone inside then?"

"Well erm…. no…. but I will tomorrow."

"Yeah and Magikarps can fly."

"Shut up man! Anyway do you know why it's been shut this long?"

"Yeah, not that long ago a science experiment went wrong, the place is too contaminated for people to go in."

"You're wrong."

"What?"

"You're right about the science experiment part but not about the contamination part. I was talking to this guy who said he's seen thieves and crooks go in to get loot and trainers go in there to train and to catch Pokémon. But they say that people go missing in there. They say that people die in there. They say that the experiment that went wrong is still in there, lurking in the shadows."

"That's lame man. There's no way in hell that's true. Just some stupid story to scare kids away." The two trainers laughed at the ridiculous of the story. Red however smiled faintly, he now had something to do while the gym was locked.

* * *

"Thank you for waiting. Your Pokémon are fully healed." Red received his five Pokéballs form the nurse as Pikachu jumped onto his shoulder.

"We hope to see you again." Both Red and Pikachu gave each other grins and rolled their eyes. Why was every single nurse in every single town a sadist? Putting the matter to one side the pair left the building and made their way to the North West part of the island. It wasn't long until they came across an old run down building. Red was taken aback at the size of the place; it was near three storeys high and from what had remained he could tell that it was no ordinary lab, it was more like a mansion than a lab.

He felt Pikachu shiver on his shoulder. His partner's feelings about the building were clear to Red; he himself was having second thoughts about entering. It structural integrity seemed to be intact but there was no to be sure. He reached up to pet Pikachu, reassuring the little mouse before taking a step towards the building.

It was quite inside but they could hear cracks and creaks around them. Red was on high alert, Charizard's Pokéball at the ready, he expected Team Rocket to appear any second; this place for some reason reminding him of his experiences with them at Lavender Tower and at Saffron's Sliph Co headquarters. On both of those occasions Red and his teams had felt real fear, at Lavender it was fear of the paranormal while at Saffron it was fear for his life.

He felt his heartbeat rise and Pikachu tense up on his shoulder. He lowered Charizard's Pokéball and took several deep breaths, calming himself down. Once his heart rate had lowered enough he started to look around. There was rubble either side of the main hallway and a large imposing stair case at the end of it. Red walked towards it, as he did so he noticed a path to his right. Deciding that he would go up the stairs later he took the path. He continued until he found four pillars all broken about three quarters the way up and burn marks covering them. South of the pillars was a room blocked of by a mechanical gate, similar to the ones that he had encountered at Saffron.

Red could tell from the thickness of pillars that large amount of force was needed to break them like that. As he studied them more, he found some rope between the second and third pillars. He bent down to put the rope in his bag when he heard a whistle. Both he and Pikachu took battle positions waiting for something to attack them.

Nothing.

Just creaks and cracks greeted them. Pikachu looked up at Red and pointed towards the left. Red nodded in understanding, kneeling down so that Pikachu could get on he continued further left to investigate.

They found two rooms, each of them blocked of by the same mechanical gate that had blocked of the first room they had encountered. Red sighed, if these things worked anything like they did in Saffron then it looked as though he would need to find yet another key.

A growl.

This time it had came behind them but there was nothing there. They retraced their steps all the way back to the pillars. Still there was nothing. No life whatsoever, yet this place seemed to be alive. Suddenly Pikachu jumped off his shoulder and ran forwards, towards some rubble. Red followed, trying to keep up with.

They stopped just in front of the rubble. Red didn't understand why Pikachu had come here or why the little mouse was pointing vigorously at it. Red knelt down to Pikachu's level to see if he could get a better look. He was surprised to see a little hole and fell air flowing through it. He felt around the rubble, pleased to find that it was mostly wood. The two then pulled and tugged at the opening, splitting and cracking the wood to make a hole large enough for them to get through.

Soon enough they made a hole big enough and they wriggled their way through. They saw a small table in the middle of the room with three chairs around it. To their right was a sink and cooker but what really grabbed their attention was a statue at the far corner of the room.

Red was torn to it. It seemed to be made of a green grey metal. He had no idea what the statue was of, it looked like a Pokémon, but he had never seen any Pokémon quite like this. Yet it seemed so familiar, like he had seen it in a dream. Red stared at the statue gazing into its eyes.

"Pi?" Red jumped back into reality as turned to see his partner Pokémon on top of the table sniffing at something on it. He walked over and saw three set of plates, knives and forks. He coughed and his eyes watered as the smell of the rotting food on the plates hit him. Picking up Pikachu, he pushed his way out though the hole that they had created and made for the stairs.

Another one of the mysterious statues greeted him on the landing of the second floor along with another flight of stairs. There were more rooms on this floor; two of them were blocked of, one had been a bathroom and had a HP Up (he also found some Zinc in a pile of rubble) in it while another had yet more stairs. Having explored the second floor he decided to take the first flight of stairs he had found on this floor.

He found himself in a small room, nearly full to the brim of pile of wood and brick. In amongst the rubbish he found a potion and the half of a teddy bear. As he dug around he found more bears and soft toys before finding a small bed underneath a pile of bricks. On the bed he found a battered and torn book. A lot of the pages had been damaged, either ripped or by the looks of things burnt away. Red flicked through, trying to find something legible, when he found two pages that were.

"_Diary: July 5_

_Guyana, South America_

_A new Pokémon was discovered deep__in the jungle.__" _

"_Diary: July 10_

_We christen the newly discovered Pokémon, Mew."_

Once again the pages became too damaged to be readable and resorted to flicking through again.

"_Diary: Feb 6_

_Mew gave birth._

_We name the newborn MewTwo."_

This time Red flicked through until he reached the last page of the book.

"_Diary: Sept. 1_

_MewTwo is far too powerful._

_We have failed to curb its vicious tendencies…."_

Red paused in thought. The two Pokémon names rang in his head. He sat on the bed, scratching his chin pondering over the two of them. Red sat there for a good five minutes before he saw Pikachu's ears perk up. He looked worriedly over at the small mouse trying to figure out what was going on. There was a groan above them. Red dived off the bed. Parts of the ceiling a wall collapsed, showering the bed in wood and stone.

More groans.

Red picked up Pikachu and ran for the stairs. Splinters of wood and fragments of bricks shattering at their heels; threatening to catch up. He didn't look back as flew down the stairs, taking two sometimes three at a time. The second floor was in sight, a piece of brick clipped his heel. He tumbled down, landing at rest in front of the statue.

He braced himself, ready for the impact, doing his best to shield Pikachu from the force that was about to come. But the impact never came, he stood up and turned to find that the stairs that he had just come down were now blocked a quarter of the way up. Red looked down at the yellow mouse in his arms, its eyes shut, holding tightly onto him for its life. He grinned, petting his friend, and played with his ears.

Pikachu opened his eyes and looked around, realising that he was clinging onto Red, he quickly scurried up onto Red's shoulder where he folded hiss arms and puffed out his chest. Red smiled smugly at his little companion earning him a small slap around his ear.

Once again he found himself staring at the statue. Mew and Mewtwo. It had to be one of them in this statue but which one? He studied the statue, going over every detail of it. As his hand went over the left arm of the statue he felt a small bump. Looking at it closer, it seemed to be a switch. His hand hovering above it, Red was unsure what to do. He looked at Pikachu apprehensively before plucking up the courage and pushed it.

The floor lurched, as a loud clunking sound started. The two spun towards the flight of stairs. Thankfully it seemed to hold as only a few bit of wood fell loose. The clunking gave way to a mechanical drone, they followed the noise to one the closed of rooms, surprised to see the gates had disappeared. Quickly they ran back to the statue and pressed the switch again. Again the floor lurched though less violently than before. Once they had returned to the room, they found that the gate had returned. Red smiled at Pikachu who returned it, they hurried back to press the switch once more and then explored the two now opened rooms.

Broken down machines cluttered these rooms. It was easy to trip on the many wires that were lying around not to mention the occasional sparks that some of them would give of. However on the plus side there were many useful items, even a few TMs. As they exited the second of the two rooms they heard a whizzing noise.

One of the machines had turned on randomly. Red walked over towards it. It was a small machine on a desk; it had a mechanical arm going up and down over a piece of paper drawing what looked like a graph to Red. The arm stopped drawing after a couple of minutes and the paper was flung out before the whole machine fell silent and still. Red took the piece of paper and held it up portrait. To him it just looked like lines moving from the left to the right all the way down the page, the only thing of substance were that the length of the lines varied. Short and only covering the centre of the page at the top becoming longer as it got closer to the middle, reaching its peak about three quarters the way down the page (with the line almost reaching from the left to the right) with it petering out as it reached the end.

Red tried to make sense of it all, turning the page landscape to see if it changed anything but to no use. He wrinkled his nose as he thought back school, he smiled to himself; perhaps he should have paid more attention during class.

They were at a cross-road, should they leave or continue exploring. All logic dictated that he should leave. The building could collapse at any time and apart from the occasional item he found there was nothing in here. No people, no Pokémon, nothing. Yet it was this nothingness that intrigued him. How could this place be so empty but feel so vibrant?

Another whistle.

Pikachu tugged at his jeans, imploring Red to leave but his curiosity was getting to him. He followed the sound to the flight of stairs in one of the rooms. Despite Pikachu's protests he went up it, determined to find out what that whistle was.

Another statue met him as he ascended up to the third level and even more lab machines. To his right another gate blocked his entrance to a room. The switch was in the same place as the other statue. He pressed it, causing the floor to shake again and gate to rescind into the wall. The creaking stopped and a calmness took hold. Pikachu shivered on his shoulder, unnerved by the sudden quite. Red stepped forward into the room, there was nothing much in it, a book shelf, a table and chair with rotting legs. He took another step forwards. His foot went through the floor, followed by the rest of his body.

* * *

A small paw like object hit his cheek. Red opened his eyes to see Pikachu standing above him, a worried look on the little mouse's face. He smiled at his close friend before wincing as he felt the rest of his body. Gingerly he sat, keeping his left arm tucked into his body. Slowly he started inspecting himself, he had a splitting headache and was bleeding from the lip but apart from that his head seemed OK. His jeans were torn all over and he was bleeding slightly below his left knee. He rubbed his stomach and chest wincing again as he rubbed his left side, peeling up his jacket and shirt revealed a huge bruise and another small cut. Next he turned his attention to his left arm, there were no cuts but it was incredibly painful trying to move it. He spat out some blood and looked up. Turning to Pikachu, he gave his partner a wry amused bloody smile; he couldn't believe that he had fallen so far with so few injuries. Pikachu shook his head disapprovingly.

Red pushed himself up and took stock of his surroundings. There was a small stair well in front of him, at the very end of this floor, to his right was another room that had a mechanical gate and behind him stood another statue. His body and reason told him to get out of there and get himself checked out, but he had come this far, it was as if he was called to this room. He limped over towards the statue and clicked the switch. The gate gave way and Red hobbled over into the room.

Shattered glass filled this room; there were more machines in here than anywhere else in the building combined. Huge broken cylindrical tubes lined the right hand side while an orange liquid slushed about around them. Red made his way over to the left where a line of monitors were. Each one cracked and dusty, the computers connected to them refusing to turn on. Near one of the monitors lay a notebook.

Red picked it up and looked through it, many of the pages were burnt with nearly all of them blood stained. The remaining few had to be handled delicately but what was on them took Red's breath away. They were the most beautiful and intricate that Red had ever seen, depicting a young girl, joyous and energetic. She was so life like that she could almost leap of the page. At the bottom of one of them read a small inscription. The handwriting was poor but after several minutes of re-reading it he made out what had been written.

'_Stage one is finished. Soon I will have you back my love.'_

The whistle returned.

Red placed the notebook down. Pikachu started tugging away again, desperate for them to leave. But Red would have none of it, he wanted to know what had and what was happening here, he needed to know. He moved from corner to corner, hopeful of finding a computer that worked or a scrap of paper with more information. All he found was a couple of TMs and a face full of dust.

After twenty minutes of searching, Red leaned against the wall, finally defeated. Pikachu gave him a sad look and hugged his leg in an effort to cheer up his trainer. Red knelt over and petted Pikachu, he nodded at his friend. It was time to leave,

A blue light flashed and buzzing started. Red looked over and found machine going haywire. On closer inspection it looked like a larger version of the machine that turned on earlier, this time with a larger encased arm. The arm's movements increased and became more frantic. There was no need for Pikachu to tug him away this time, adrenaline coursed through him. He picked up Pikachu and ran for the stairs.

He was half way there when the whole building started to shake, causing him to fall over. Splinters of wood rained down upon him and cracks in the floor started to appear. Another surge of adrenaline forced Red up and to the stairs, the pain in his body was gone, his only thoughts were to get out.

A beam of wood almost decapitated him as reached the top of the stairs. The floor was unrecognisable as brick, concrete and wood flew around him; creating new paths while blocking old ones. Red ducked under another beam of wood that tried to impale him before his sent flying of his feet as a wall sent brick right at him. Shaking himself up, Red saw daylight where the wall had been. He didn't know how many floors he was up, but it was worth the risk. He flung himself out, turning in mid air so that Pikachu would land on his chest.

He hit the ground almost instantly. Fortunately it appeared he had been on the ground floor when he had jumped out. He raised Pikachu up and the two of them celebrated. There was an explosion and a jet of liquid erupted out from a side of the building. Red mentally cursed as he picked himself up, tucking Pikachu under his right arm and ran as fast as he could. He didn't want that liquid falling on him let alone the debris from the building that had been expelled by the explosion.

Ignoring the pain that had returned; he didn't look back. He heard the smashing of debris falling behind him and fizz and hiss of when the liquid fell back down. He ran and ran until he was nearly back at the centre of town. Only when he saw the Pokémon centre did he chance a look back. Still running forward as he looked back, he didn't notice a bald man with long bushy white moustache wearing a lab coat and dark sunglasses walking into his path.

"Whoa there kid!" the man shouted just in time before Red ploughed into him.

"What the hell happened to you? Were you near the geyser when it went of?" Red simply nodded and bent over, exhaustion now taking over.

"Well c'mon then. We better get you checked over."

* * *

Red sat on the hospital bed, petting Pikachu as he slept next to him. His left arm was in a sling and he was covered in bandages. He looked out of the window in the direction of the building. His thoughts on diary and the drawings that he had seen. It had been devoid of any life yet there was something about that place.

He lay down next to Pikachu. It didn't matter now, they were safe. He closed his eyes as tiredness began to sink in. It wasn't long before he started dreaming about his next gym battle with Blaine.

While Red slept, outside the window, there was a whistle.

* * *

**AN: So what do you guys think? Good? Bad? So horrendously awful that I should give up writing lol? First of I would like to thank JohnTitor for giving the idea to write this (go check out his stuff, he's a seriously good author). I started this an age ago and had hoped to publish it mid October last year, but uni work caught up to me. But hey, I finally finished it, so drop me a review.**

**Unfortunately I will be going on hiatus for a bit (by a bit I mean a very long time), have a huge project to do at uni so you know that take priority :( **

**Anyways sorry for the stupid long an! This has been 92fd.**

**Cheers!  
**


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